Twitter Tells McDonald's Its Account Was Compromised -- Update
March 16 2017 - 5:22PM
Dow Jones News
By Julie Jargon
McDonald's Corp. said on Thursday it was notified by Twitter
Inc. that its account was compromised, after a message about
President Donald Trump was posted from the burger chain's corporate
Twitter account.
The tweet, which read, "@realDonaldTrump You are actually a
disgusting excuse of a President and we would love to have @Barack
Obama back, also you have tiny hands" was "pinned" to the top of
the official corporate account for about 20 minutes early Thursday
morning.
Not long after, a McDonald's spokeswoman said the company
deleted the tweet and secured its account and was investigating the
incident. Later in the day a spokesperson said: "Based on our
investigation, we have determined that our Twitter account was
hacked by an external source. We took swift action to secure it,
and we apologize this tweet was sent through our corporate
McDonald's account."
The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. A
Twitter spokesman said the social-media site doesn't comment on
individual accounts "for privacy and security reasons."
Twitter was abuzz following the post, with some people calling
for a boycott of the burger chain. "McDonald's Twitter" was among
the site's trending topics. Others jokingly asked to see the
president's McDonald's receipts. One person tweeted that the
National Security Agency already has a suspect, below which he
posted a photo of the Burger King mascot.
McDonald's mostly stays out of politics, declining to comment
publicly on administration policies that could affect the
restaurant industry, deferring comment to the industry's trade
group. The company in 2015 hired Robert Gibbs, a former White House
press secretary under President Obama, to be its global chief
communications officer.
Social media is a new arena for McDonald's, which until recently
didn't actively use twitter or Facebook.
Write to Julie Jargon at julie.jargon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 16, 2017 18:07 ET (22:07 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
McDonalds (NYSE:MCD)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
McDonalds (NYSE:MCD)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024
